Need of the hour: Education Revolution

On December 15 as we were returning from an organisational meet at Bardhaman, the 3-hour long train journey broke into an intense discussion between me and my comrade from Bangla Pokkho, Dr Garga Chatterjee. What is the way forward? How shall we answer the unemployment question? Unemployment is the single biggest problem that India is facing today. Year after year we are witnessing jobless growth. Government comes and goes, jobs remain the single biggest issue in every election. But how shall we bell this cat? The answer lies in our education system. We all know our education system is faulty, but the bigger question is what is the solution?

Today, education in India is extremely costly. And when I say costly I don't mean the tuition fee is too high. It is high but more than that I am talking about "time". The total number of years invested and the return on that investment. Even after spending 15-16 years of our lives, many remain unemployed. Not everyone can afford such a huge investment for such a low return. The net result is drop-outs. According to 2014-15 data, India's enrolment rate in primary education (class I-V) is comparable to that of developed countries. However, it starts falling behind these countries after class VI. In India, only 23 per cent enrol themselves for higher studies as against about 87 per cent in the US, 57 per cent in the UK and 39 per cent in China. The drop-out peaks at the secondary level (class IX-X). According to NSSO data (71st round) the reason for dropping out (for the 5-29 age group) for a male student is the economic activities while for a female student, it is the domestic activities.

The present education system is a child born out of the industrial revolution that started in Great Britain in the 18th century. With every clatter of iron wheels and hums of heavy machines, Industrial revolution catapulted our world from an agrarian society to the modern industrial age. Human civilisation entered a new era. An era where the feudal economies gave way for capitalist economies. Earlier, the richest people of the society came from royal families and their nobles. But with industrial revolution private enterprise swelled, a new powerful class came into fore – the capitalists. The locus of power slowly drifted away from the palaces and forts to the factories and offices. Thus, monarchies started crumbling paving way for democratic governance. In the changed setup, the capitalists with their huge factories are now the flag bearers of the societal changes.

With cheap products abundantly available, these machines destroyed the existing markets and replaced them with new ones. The factories created a huge demand for jobs. Jobs needed to run these machines, jobs needed for book-keeping, for managing the labourers. And to equip men and women with the new skills that would integrate them with the wheel of progress, the society needed a new schooling system. A schooling system that can efficiently produce men and women that can keep the factories running. Thus, factories created jobs, these jobs brought wealth to people increasing their purchasing power and thus creating a vibrant class, the consumers. These consumers started determining market demand. The market demand fueled the factories and in return, it determined the education policy of the society.

Our education system started giving emphasis to those skills that can fetch the premium jobs from the market. Thus, today's education system is designed to produce doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, bankers, managers. And these high paying jobs require years of education. But what about those who can't afford to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, bankers and managers? What about those who live at the bottom of the pyramid? What does this system have in store for them? How will this education system uplift them from their miseries? To swim from the bed of the ocean and reach the top, most will end up dying in between. And this is exactly what's happening today. The time, the money that is required to succeed in this system the poor just cannot afford. And neither is this system equipping them with the skills that can give them decent employment at a lesser time. The end result, India's top 9 richest person own as much as the bottom 50 per cent. The present system is elitist in nature, it serves the affluent more than the poor when it should be the other way round.

This education system needs an immediate upgrade. From a top-down approach, we must move to a bottom-up approach. The need of the hour is skill-intensive education policy. Besides regular education, students must be equipped with modern vocational skills that will find them suitable employment by the time they pass out. It is only when they see the fruits of their loom will they get encouraged to pursue their education. In Germany, they have adopted this very policy.

Germany's secondary education system is of two parts, lower and upper. Lower secondary level is meant to teach students basic general education while in the upper secondary level they have a vast variety of vocational programs. This format of secondary education equip individuals with high skill sets that help them earn a decent living the moment they step out of their schools. Around 51 per cent of Germany's highly skilled workforce has gone through the dual system of vocational education and training also known as V.E.T. These V.E.T. programmes are partnered with about 430,000 companies, and about 80 per cent of those companies hire individuals from those apprenticeship programs to get a full-time job. Each year there are more than 500,000 apprenticeship positions available across all sectors of the economy and public administration. The host companies pay apprentices a monthly salary of around 800 euros which increases every year. Germany's V.E.T. programmes prove that a college degree is not necessary for a good job and that training individuals for specific jobs could be successful as well.

We live in an era where jobs are getting harder to find each passing day. Our country is leapfrogging with high decadal growth rates but jobs are not getting created. On top of that, faulty government policies and automation are killing the already created jobs. In such times we have to get our act right. We cannot let our people waste a good part of their career and call them "unemployable".

According to a study done by an employability assessment company Aspiring Minds last year, only 5 per cent of engineers in the country was fit for software development jobs. A McKinsey report aired a similar view a decade ago when they said only 25 per cent of engineers in India are employable. Then what happens to the rest? They seek employment in other industries. India doesn't have a job crisis, India has a "Skill Crisis". For example, according to global technology major IBM's estimates in 2018 India required a whopping 3 million cyber security professionals but the supply was not even 100,000. When we sit and decide the way forward in education we must keep in mind, children entering school this year will enter the job market around 2035. The question that we must be asking ourselves, in the present setup how many of them will earn a decent living in the world beyond 2035? We must not forget that education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it from today.

(The views expressed are strictly personal)